This month’s T-SQL Tuesday topic comes from TJay Belt who asks about experiences managing Work/Life balance. The invitation blog post can be found by clicking the image below:
Successes Working From Home
It can be hard to get away from work when your work is in your home but that kind of thinking goes both ways. It’s easier to be at home when home is where you work.
Instead of signing out for lunch and heading downtown or to a breakroom to get something to eat, it’s now easy to walk downstairs, wake up the dog, and take a hike through the woods behind our house. If it’s a day that my wife is off, there might even be lunch waiting when we get back!
If I didn’t get much sleep the night before, lunch might also be the perfect time to take a 30 minute nap before refueling for the afternoon. Never underestimate a good power nap.
I’m familiar with people that talk about doing mundane things like loading the dishwasher or doing laundry when working from home (and those are great, too) but walks and naps are my favorites.
Even if you’re going into an office, I recommend finding a place to walk and stretch your back and legs. As for naps, there’s always sleeping in your car but that might not be the most comfortable way to break up your day.
Striving to Get Better
When Friday finally comes, I try to have a “shutdown ritual” to get my head in the right place for the weekend. I started making this more of a priority after reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World which is a great read. The end of the day Friday is my time to review everything I have assigned to me in Jira, tickets, or elsewhere and make sure I know what the next steps are for each project for the following week. Before signing out for the weekend, I can feel confident that I have a plan for what’s ahead and know where everything stands when I shut down my laptop.
But, I still find myself checking e-mails too often. It can fall into the same category as refreshing social media for the latest meme, news, etc. where sometimes the activity is mindless compared to being something I genuinely want to do. Rather than wait until the next day for a potential e-mail reply, I’ll keep checking out of curiosity so I can try to be one step ahead if a reply comes through. Having e-mail a few taps away on a phone can have its disadvantages and is one area I can improve on.
Will Work/Life Balance Get Easier?
I’m hoping the 4 day work week will pick up some steam. That extra day off each week could obviously be a huge boost to anyone struggling with their work/life balance. Will that be the next shift after so many companies now allowing remote work? Time will tell!
Thanks for reading!
Chad Callihan 